[BrettK]

Thanks for bringing this up, Naphand. I've always calculated for one card at a time, figuring that if I'm making a mistake on the flop, it's not by much and not often.

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Betting the pot on the flop, means the caller is getting odds of 2:1, he has to call your pot-sized bet, but has that plus the pot, so 2X his bet to call. Is betting the pot enough? From this calculation any flush still has enough odds to draw even HU. If any other player is likely to call then they easily have the odds to call.

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Like you said, the calculation isn't this simple unless one of you is all-in, because the turn bet has to be taken into account. Using a HU situation as an example, if you plan to bet the pot again on the turn when any card other than a third card of that suit falls, you'll be betting three times what the pot was on the flop(the original pot plus your flop bet and his call), so while it's true that over two cards after the flop the odds are 2:1 against him making his hand, it's also true that his pot odds are only 5:4. Stack sizes are important here, especially if you'll pay him off when he hits, because implied odds may make it a correct call.

I recently read in either TOP or TPFAP that there are even situations in which it's correct *not* to bet the best hand, because there are so many scare cards in the deck that as long as your opponent is a good player and knows that you'll fold if he bets a scare card, he actually has a better chance of winning the hand. This is not very relevant, but I thought it was interesting to note.

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However, if you consider each street as a single-card draw, (ie. you definitely bet the Turn as well) then the draws are only 4:1 and 5:1 respectively, and a pot sized bet is correct in both cases.

Can anyone explain the mathematical concept behind this? It seems to me that the odds to draw to a flush (at 2:1 with 2 cards to come) is much more relevant to limit poker, where your opponent never faces more than a few BB to draw. Can we ever consider a flush as drawing to TWO cards? where another bet is cewrtain on the Turn? Or is it more correct to only consider each as single card draws?

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I agree. Being able to create your opponent's odds for him makes things much more complicated. It would be great to hear from one of the math gurus.

Brett